But sometimes I still do.

May 01, 2009

Day 2 dawned bright and EARLY. Yay, toddler jet-lag. The Bomber woke up at 5 AM, and after 15 minutes of trying to get him back to sleep and another 15 of him rolling around in bed with us, we decided to just get up. We headed out to Barker Dam, but our first stop was the side of the road, where I spotted this cactus in bloom.

Larry and H-bomb also found the Joshua trees quite interesting, apparently.

These are two of the bigger ones. Joshua trees only grow around a half inch a year after the first five years, so those trees could be a hundred or more years old. Which is pretty amazing.

When we got to the Barker Dam area, we headed out on the Wall Street Mill trail, where we stopped to explore this old house foundation, which is on the trail to the mill itself, not far from a couple of rusted 1920s vintage car frames.

H-bomb really dug this part of the hike. He kept going in and out of the door and peeking out the window.

As we were getting ready to continue our hike, H decided he had to go...um...#2, so we hustled back to the bathroom at the trailhead. After the potty break, we tried to go back out for more hiking, but H wanted none of that, and threw a tantrum of epic proportions, which is VERY unlike him. We decided we'd head back to the inn, but a few minutes into the trip, he fall asleep, so Larry and I decided to take the dirt road through Covington Flats to Eureka Peak. (The road is pretty bumpy, but H slept right through the whole drive, so I guess he was just really tired.) The view from the peak is spectacular.

Larry got out and took a walk around, and after a few minutes H woke up in a much better mood. Larry talked him into hiking a bit, which we did. Then Larry did what Larry does on these trips:

while H-bomb and I amused ourselves taking self-portraits.

H was still a little cranky, so we ended the day by going back to the inn, relaxing in the room, and running a few errands. The next morning we headed back to LAX, where H got to see what I think was probably his most favorite part of the whole trip - the windmill farms in the San Gorgoinio pass, which you have to drive through to get from LA to Twentynine Palms.

Anyway, tantrum notwithstanding, I think it was a successful trip, and I look forward to many more such trips with Larry and the Bomber in the years to come.

April 30, 2009

As I may have mentioned once or twice (or repeatedly, until people got sick of hearing it), last week the Stinky Volcano family packed up and headed to California for our annual pilgrimage to commune with the cactuses at Joshua Tree National Park. Larry and I have been going there almost annually since November 2001, and H-bomb has now been twice (plus we went while I was pregnant, though I guess he couldn't really see anything). I was a little apprehensive about taking a trip like this with a 2 1/2 year old, but he did really well. He handled the four flights beautifully, and really seemed to enjoy the hiking and wildlife, at least on Friday. On Saturday morning we did more hiking, which he also really liked, but then he had an unexpected and large-ish meltdown, followed by a long nap in the car. We did a little more hiking around after that, but in retrospect, I think we should have planned a more kid-friendly second day. Ah well, live and learn. Overall, though, it was a nice trip, and a good time was had by all.

So here it is. Our trip to the Tree in (many) photos:

Friday morning, H-bomb was ready to go. In fact, he was giving us
directions on where to stop and which way to go. When did he become
such a little back seat driver?

At our first stop we saw a lot of cool stuff, including interesting rocks:

and tons of lizards, most of which probably still haven't recovered from having a two year old yelling "come here lizard" at them while they tried to skitter away to safety. Wait, do lizards even have ears? Maybe only Larry and I are still trying to recover from that.

After that quick walk around, we headed to Cottonwood Spring for a hike along the wash. H-bomb brought his own provisions along on the hike. After all, you wouldn't want to get stranded in the desert without your cheddar bunnies, would you?

Actually, he liked playing in the sand way more than he liked hiking. It was like one giant sandbox to him. It was even more exciting after Dad taught him to pee in the desert. He thought that was about the best thing, ever.

He was also very interested in the seedlings the NPS was apparently trying to grow (or protect, it wasn't really clear what they were doing), and he pretty much stopped to examine each one. Much as I'd like to think this suggests a career in botany or ecology or something, he was really more interested in figuring out how to open the cages. So maybe he's a future magician. Or a housebreaker. As long as he's happy....

While H-bomb examined the seedlings, Larry spotted a barrel cactus in bloom and scrambled up for a shot.

Way up.

H-bomb hiked for a quite awhile...

but eventually he got tired and needed a ride. I was happy to oblige.

Before the H-bomb came along, one of our favorite hikes was the 8 mile round trip to the Lost Palms Oasis. The trailhead starts in Cottonwood Spring, as a lovely stroll through the desert, but almost immediately you encounter this:

That wee little sign up there at the top kindly informs you that you have a mere 3.85 miles to go to get to the oasis. On the bright side, when you get to that sign on the way back, you come up over that rise, spot the parking lot off in the distance and have a sudden urge to fall on your knees in thanks. Okay, maybe people in better shape don't have quite as forceful a reaction. But I always did. Anyway, we couldn't do the hike with the Bomber along, but in honor of our tradition, we hiked as far as that sign. Lucky H; he got a ride up:

The Lost Palms Oasis is stunning, so I was a little sad we didn't get to hike out there (and probably won't for many years), but there's also a much more accessible, if significantly smaller, oasis right at the trailhead. (It's that grove of palm trees off to the right, there.)

Larry and H-bomb took the opportunity to examine the palms up close.

Finally, it was time for a short refreshment break.

After the hike it was time for a nap, and then a swim in the inn's pool. That window the red arrow is pointing to was our room.

After the swim, we headed back to the park for some rock scrambling. Thankfully H got there just in time to keep this rock from falling over.

After that we headed back to the inn, and had some dinner and then went back to the room for bath and night-nights. H went right to sleep, despite the band playing almost directly below him, so I guess we wore him out. Larry and I took the baby monitor down to the pool area and enjoyed a glass of wine, before heading to bed ourselves. And thus endeth Day 1.

April 27, 2009

We're back from the desert, and I have lots to say about it, but given the mound of work on my desk and my lack of motivation to get it done, I'm going to start with a few quick items about our travel that have nothing to do with desert:

is seriously the best invention, ever, for anyone who frequently travels by airplane with a car-seat-sized child. (That's not my kid, by the way. That's the picture from a vendor's website.) It is so amazingly handy, and we got more than a few comments and envious glances from people pushing strollers while hauling car seats through the airport. We also had at least three people come up and ask us where to get one. Honestly, I should be getting commission for this.

That said, how can an airport as large as LAX not have an x-ray machine big enough for a Britax Roundabout (that's the smaller Britax convertible seat) to fit through with that attached? They're pretty much the only airport I've encountered, including tiny CAE, that can't take it through the regular machine. They insisted we dismantle the whole thing and then took it to hand scan anyway.

Second, H-bomb is a great traveler, but I fear we have spoiled him for air travel forever. Larry travels so much he's a uranium club member or somesuch, so we got the express lane for security, boarded first (or, in one case bypassed the line to board), and spent all of our waiting time in the club rooms sipping free beverages while relaxing in comfy chairs. H is going to be sadly disappointed some day when he has to travel like the common folk.

And that said, you encounter the biggest jackasses in those club rooms. Really, just because I'm wearing hiking boots and a fleece does not make me less important than you. So get over your iPhone toting, bluetooth blabbering, ego-inflated self. Mkay?

Finally, Hertz customer service absolutely rocks. When we dropped our car off at the Hertz rental car return on Sunday, the guy working the check-in noticed that we had a small child in the car, and before we could even start getting our stuff out, he called another Hertz employee over and asked him to drive us to our terminal. That guy drove us right to the terminal, helped us get our stuff out, and then scoured the car to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything. (Which I had - I almost left my ridiculously expensive and difficult to replace eyeglasses behind.) Anyone who has ever traveled with a toddler knows how great it is to not have to lug three backpacks, two giant duffel bags, one car seat and one small child aboard a rental car shuttle bus, only to have to lug it all off again at the terminal.

And I don't have any "that said" for this one. It was just flat out awesome.

April 26, 2009

LOL - Derby Field, Nevada. After you get there, you may have to continue on to Barreirinhas, Brazil (BRB).

MOO - Mooba, Australia. To get there, you have to start at Coquimbo, Chile (COW).

NFL
- Fallon, Nevada. You can fly from there to Nambaiyufa, Papua New
Guinea (NBA) or Melbourne, Florida (MLB), but if you like hockey,
you're out of luck.

PIE - St. Petersburg-Clearwater
International, Florida. Mmmmm. Pie. That would make a good stopover on
that flight from BBQ to BLT.

TUX - Tumbler Ridge, Canada. Black tie is NOT optional.

UCE - Eunice, Louisiana. They wanted to call it SPAM, but that's too many letters.

VAT - Vatomandry, Madagascar. I'd like a flight from there to Keglsugl, Papua New Guinea (KEG).

WET - Wagethe, Indonesia. Make sure you get your towel from the flight attendant before deplaning.

WOW - Willow, Alaska. "I've got an 8:30 AM flight to WOW." I want to go there just so I can say that. I'd
like to mention here that I was really excited for the X codes, until I
got to that portion of the list. No XXX, No XXL. Not even an XFL.
Nothing. The best I could come up with was XML, but that seemed way too
geeky to bother with.

YES - Yasouj, Iran. A flight from there
to Naoro, Papua New Guinea (NOO) would be like a conversation between
me and the Bomber. Actually, that would be more like a flight from
Yasouj, to Naoro, back to Yasouj, and then a bunch of touch-and-goes at
Naoro. YES-NOO-YES-NOO-NOO-NOO. (Also, again with the Papua New Guinea
airport. How come they get all the good codes and I'm stuck with CAE?)

YYZ
- Lester P. Pearson International, Toronto, Canada. This is actually
not that interesting an airport code, but I had to include it, because
it's also the name of an old Rush song, and if I don't, Larry will
inevitably read this and go "what about YYZ?" So there you go,
sweetie. ;-)

ZIG - Zinguinchor, Senegal. If you fly from here to
ZAG (Pleyso, Croatia), it's going to take extra time. Plus you're
probably going to get airsick. If you really want a quick trip, you'd
be better off getting a flight to the Harbour Airport in Italy, also
known as ZIP.

And finally, ZEN - Zenang, Papua New
Guinea. (Yes, I know it's out of order; consider it poetic license.)
Seems like a fitting place to land after all this travel.

April 25, 2009

A couple weeks ago when my mom was on her way here for a visit, I noticed that her flight status listed that the plane had originally come from Ottawa, Canada. The airport code for Ottawa is YOW, which kind of tickled my funny bone, so I went in search of other fun and interesting airport codes. Since I'm currently somewhere I got to by airplane, I thought this would be apropos. I actually found so many interesting ones that this turned out to be a two-parter. Here's the first half of my favorites:

ABC - Los Llanos, Spain. This one amused me mostly because it has absolutely nothing to do with the airport location, but also because I have this mental picture of an airport where the piped in music is just various versions of the alphabet song. Actually, that sounds a little like my house. But I digress....

ACK - Nantucket Memorial, MA. Ack! is actually one of my favorite expressions of dismay, but I hope that's not a commentary on the flights in and out of there.

AHA - Naha Air Force Base, Japan. When you land there, you immediately turn into a line drawing of yourself, only with 90s shag hair and a popped collar.

AIG - Yalinga, Central African Republic. You don't actually land here, you have to bail out while still in the air. (Get it? Bail out? Hah. I slay me.)